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Readers are thinking about sex and stuff this week. No surprise there. It's cold outside and no one can afford any outside entertainment so...whatcha gonna do? I got two emails from ladies who are still early in their pregnancies and had a little bleeding and brownish, gunky discharge after sex. Neither one had cramps and both felt fine otherwise but, obviously, bleeding's a worrisome thing.

I want to start off this week with a shout out to Jessica. She's my niece and had her second son recently. She wrote to me today that her little guy's a real chow-hound. He's nursing every two hours. She's hitting the wall of sleep deprivation and wonders if anything other than IV caffeine will help. Nope. That's the only thing. IV coffee. The only other cure for life among the vampires is sleep. Good luck with that, honey.

I've gotten quite a few emails lately with questions about miscarriage and first trimester bleeding. Nadine had an early miscarriage recently and was advised to wait three months before trying again. Amber had her first OB appointment and was told she wasn't nine weeks along as she thought but six weeks. Her placenta was big and there was no heartbeat. Kerri recently had her first prenatal appointment and reported a little spotting but didn't get any response or advice from her doctor.

Let's talk about cramps. You thought you'd leave those suckers behind for nine months once you got pregnant. You figured you'd have a bunch of big whoppers when you went into labor but other than that, you'd be cramp-free. Along with no period, isn't that supposed to be one of the perks of pregnancy? But then you notice some twinges. A little aching that comes and goes. Maybe you're just a few weeks along and worried there's a miscarriage coming. Maybe you're in your second trimester and worried it's preterm labor.

Is there anything more frightening than a threat to your child? Even if your child is still just a squiggle on the ultrasound screen, a little nausea and a whole lot of hope? Kelly wrote about being newly pregnant and spotting. She's only known about her pregnancy for a couple of weeks and says she felt "elated" for the first 6 days. Then the spotting started and the worry. Ultrasounds have been reassuring that the baby is ,indeed, alive and well with a tiny beating heart.

Routine prenatal screening tests can understandably cause expectant parents a good amount of worry. But it’s reassuring to know that despite the possibility of scary results, the vast majority of pregnancies end in the birth of a healthy baby.

It goes with the territory: When you’re pregnant, you can’t help but worry about the health of your baby. Fortunately, there are a host of prenatal tests that can help ease your fears and make even a healthy pregnancy less stressful. Following is a rundown of the tests you’re most likely to undergo; see the chart at right for detailed information.

Pregnant women are notorious worriers. They fret over prenatal tests, maternity leave, baby names, labor, sleeping arrangements for their new arrival, child care, even food cravings. But generally their biggest worry is whether they’ll have a healthy baby. Not to worry. The odds are sky-high that when your child is born, she’ll be the picture of good health. But you can push those odds even higher by taking good care of yourself before and during pregnancy.

now, more than ever, taking care of yourself is top priority. With your baby developing inside you, you know you should get the most out of what you’re eating. You also know that you need extra calories for your baby’s development. But there may be something you haven’t thought about: Avoiding foods that make you sick or that harm your growing baby is also an important part of the equation.

One of the top questions on Julie Hoegee’s mind when she found out she was pregnant at age 34 was whether she should have an amniocentesis. “There was just something scary about a big needle going into my belly,” says the Los Angeles mother of 8-month-old Charlie. “And I knew there was a slight miscarriage risk.” So when Hoegee’s nurse-midwife and doctor told her about combined first-trimester screening, a blood test and new ultrasound technique that can reliably determine risk for chromosomal abnormalities, such as Down syndrome, as early as week 11 of pregnancy, she jumped on it.

Before my first pregnancy, I enjoyed a glass of wine with dinner and an occasional big, juicy chili dog. But even in those very first days after I conceived, the wine tasted flat and the hot dog repulsed me. Fast-forward a few weeks. With a positive pregnancy test in hand, I realized that my body knew I was pregnant before my mind did. Of course, the earliest symptoms of pregnancy wax and wane and are different for each woman; in fact, some women may experience (or notice) none of them. But several can crop up well before you even miss a period.

THE CONCERN: Doing all the right things"Am I exercising too hard? Am I eating the right (or wrong) foods? What if I eat three servings of fish a week, rather than the recommended two?"— Stacy Whitman, Ketchum, Idaho, mother of Whit, 2, and pregnant with twins

Probably not. One concern with air travel is exposure to solar radiation, as excessive amounts of any type of radiation may put a fetus at increased risk for childhood cancers. However, the American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists states that such risks from "casual" air travel under normal solar conditions are negligible.